Just before his death the Grand Duke sent for Ferdinando, told him he
had been poisoned by no one but himself, and charged him with the double
murder, for he had constant news, of course, of Bianca's illness. He
asked him in that solemn hour to honour both of them in burial, to
protect the little boy Antonio and his two young daughters, Maria and
Eleanora, and to treat kindly all who had been faithful and true to
Bianca and himself. Then he gave him the password for the Tuscan
fortresses, and asked for his confessor, and so he passed away. As soon
as Francesco was dead, Ferdinando demanded to be admitted to the bedside
of Bianca. Concealing from her the fatal news, he intimated that
Francesco had consigned to him the conduct of affairs, and in the most
heartless, inhuman fashion possible, bade her prepare for death!

"See," he added, "I have brought your friend, Abbioso; you may as well
make your confession to him as Francesco has done to Frate Confetti."

Bianca, though only partially conscious, knew exactly what the Cardinal
meant, and railed at him for his cruelty. In delirium she made
passionate appeals to Francesco, and wildly denounced her treacherous
brother-in-law. Her cries resounded through the villa, but they stirred
no feeling of regret or compunction in Ferdinando's breast. He gloated,
fiend-like, over his victim's sufferings. It was not by chance he
procured the potent poison he had used. The empiric-medico at Salerno
had been well paid to furnish a potion that should, by its slow but
deadly action, prolong the tortures of the sufferers! A less vindictive
murderer would have secured his victim's quick release, but, during ten
terrible days of sickness, delirium and agony, he witnessed the
inevitable progress of his vengeance! If Cosimo, his father, had called
his young son Garzia "Cain," what would not he have called the man, the
bloodthirsty Ferdinando?

Bianca's illness followed precisely the course of the Grand Duke's. The
tearful faces of her attendants, and the noise of preparations for his
burial, conveyed to her in calmer moments the terrible truth, and she
had no longer any wish to live--parted from Francesco. Bianca was
already dead. She called the bishop and made a full confession of her
whole life's story, hiding nothing, palliating nothing. Out of a full
heart she spoke--that heart which had been the source of all her love
and her happiness, her misery and her sin.

Antonio she commended